NAB 🇬🇧🇪🇺🔶

Well, that's it, the end of an era. Sid (after Sid James), my toy of the last 16 years is finally up for sale. He's had a good scrub this morning and he's about to be listed. The only problem is that I have absolutely no idea what he's worth - there's nothing like him for sale at the moment. Ah well, start high and see where we go.

Free to good home (well, for the cost of postage, anyway) #emf #emfcamp #EMFCamp2022
2x TiDAL camp badges with batteries, lanyards and daughter boards. Both unused.
First come, first served.

Been waiting for ages for a day with cheap/free #octopus electricity so I can test my #homeassistant code - it should dump heat into our radiators when the thermal store has enough hot water in it.
Well, with a bit of tweaking of the hysteresis settings, whaddayaknow... it works!

The more I play with #HomeAssistant, the more I like it. So easy to knock up a new sensor definition, show it on a dashboard and play with it.

Sometimes, rarely, I actually like people. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn78e1vzk5vo

Getting increasingly uncomfortable with a number of people cheering the death of Ian Huntley. It's one small step from, effectively, thanking the person who murdered him to calling for the re-introduction of the death penalty.

It's that time of year again - lambs in the field next to us frolicking around and constantly bleating for mum. I love spring.

Another job for today...
When bits of your lawn look like this:

Home made salad, one of the good things about Summer O'Clock.
Shout out to https://darkfirehotsauce.com/ for their superb range of flavourful chilli sauces.

Wedding anniversary. Among other things we went to the travel agents to book a river cruise up the Douro for next year. Walked out having booked a completely unplanned Cunard ocean cruise for later this year. We're going to see how that goes before deciding between a river cruise (which we know we like) and another ocean cruise for next year.

Nice job proof-reading, #starbucks
Big poster in the window - M1 Rotherham services yesterday.

Its the end of a particularly shitty week, but I'm in a good mood. In my happy place (kitchen) with a large glass of a rather decent Cabernet Sauvignon and Dad-dancing to #electroswingradio. The world is a good place. At least right now, right here.

So here are my votes. I post them here because I'm too tight to actually pay to vote.
#malta
#ukraine
#armenia
#luxembourg
#eurovision

Internal dialogue with evil self:
"No. No. No. I don't need a new project. Must stop browsing."
"But... https://narrowboats.uk/for-sale/molly/"
"No. No. No."
"But... you wanted to learn to weld."
"No. No. No."
"But... you already have the skills from when you did the campervan conversion."
"No. No. No."
"But... you're not getting any younger."
"No. No. No."
"But... But... But..."
"Look, just leave me with the thought that it's something I could do if I wanted to. OK?"
"You know I'll be back, don't you?"

Interesting morning. Spent time trying to work out what had caused this to happen in our trailer.

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk I use 'age' (https://github.com/FiloSottile/age) and that seems to work when I need that sort of thing.

Bit of a strange smell (hot liquorice) when we were away in the caravan last weekend. Spent some time this morning opening up the inspection panels.
Pretty sure this connection shouldn't look like this.

Pot, kettle, black methinks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0yle5rrp8o

Just registered the caravan for taking it abroad. The registration number must be displayed at the back alongside the towing car's registration number. Apparently the trailer plate should look like this (screenshot from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/trailer-registration-numbers-and-number-plates-inf291/trailer-registration-numbers-and-number-plates-inf291).

I want to install yet more sensors in our plant room (tank, flow, boiler, room, roofspace, external temperatures, water meter reading). Because of where they are, I would need many 5v PSUs. Considered one large PSU and running wires around, but it seemed a bit messy and lossy. Realised I have a PoE switch in there with plenty of free ports. Wondered if there was a way to pull 5v from a PoE supply and #aliexpress came to the rescue.

For weeks I've been trying to get #HACS to install on the #homeassistant VM in the camper van. For weeks it's failed - the wget of hacs.zip gets to around 80% and then bombs out. I spent hours diagnosing what on earth was happening, but couldn't get to the bottom of it. I ruled out everything - it just didn't work.
In desperation, I took a backup of the VM and spun it up in the office. It worked fine. WTF? That made no sense at all.

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk you're welcome. 😉

Absolutely superb.Well done #swedemason. https://youtu.be/16DR-dm0DxM

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 30th 2026 (Easy), in 04:36
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https://cluesbysam.com

Well that makes a nice change.

New passport delivered today and for the first time in forever, I'm happy with my picture.

Apparently I'm cooking Scomber Scombrus for tea.
#learnsomethingneweveryday

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 3rd 2026 (Medium), in less than 10 minutes
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https://cluesbysam.com

Yay!

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 7th 2026 (Hard), in less than 25 minutes
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https://cluesbysam.com

Impressed myself!

Good grief. Diesel is £1.80/litre at my local Shell. Even more worth the 25 mile round trip to Costco (£1.57).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Why offer me the choice of "Airport Parking" then?

Michael Moore - This is how fascism starts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfszwkoSdQA

Does anybody have any #nebula channel recommendations? I'm on the three day free trial and (apart from the new @tomscott@mastodon.social video), I've not found anything that grabs me. Nebula seems like a great idea, but...

"Prince William keen to build 'strong and meaningful' bond with Church"

Of course he is - promulgating the view that God granted his privileged position is one of the few ways he's going to persuade the public he deserves to keep it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx230em8jg7o

Well now, the UK #Eurovision entry is a bit... different. different for us, I mean. Pretty sure it's not going to win, but a damn good attempt at kitsch europop and a damn sight better than 99% of our entries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niMKvJ-Itq8

I'm clearly turning into an old curmudgeon. The sound of this toe-curling, cringe-inducing sketch seems to be about as far from "hilarious" as it's possible to be.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2026/amandaland-sketch-red-nose-day

Gah. Fricking fat fingers.

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 19th 2026 (Tricky), in less than 8 minutes
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Successfully remotely upgraded the esp8266 lighting controllers in the camper from #Tasmota to #ESPHome. Managed to brick the two #WLED controllers so they'll need a physical connection to sort out. The single esp32 based relay board also needs a physical connection - Tasmota on that won't let me 'upgrade' to esphome firmware.
After they're all done, I've got to work out what I did with the #zigbee controller that means it's not on the network. Then I've got to program the switches...

Can't help but think they could have come up with more striking wording. These are very 'meh'.
https://goodlawproject.org/product/jk-rowling-is-a-transphobe-stickers/

Fried eggs on fried bread are always amazing. Doubly so when spattered with peanut chilli oil. #snack #tea #comfortfood